


The Sound of Breaking Down

by Death_Herself



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky is a Scared Boy, Cryogenically Frozen Bucky Barnes, Denial of Feelings, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Nomad Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Steve Rogers Feels, Steve is a sad boy, Tony is a Clingy Boy, Wakanda, mostly canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 08:10:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13970919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Death_Herself/pseuds/Death_Herself
Summary: Steve isn't sure he can trust his own mind after Bucky returns to a cryogenically frozen state. He has a lot of time to think while hiding out in Wakanda. Thinking isn't a good thing for a man of action, or a man in denial of his feelings. Especially not for someone with crippling guilt over everything he's done. Will he be able to save himself from that pit of guilt or will someone else have to pull him out?Captain America is dead and from his ashes rises Nomad Steve Rogers.





	The Sound of Breaking Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first time posting a Stucky fic. So hello stucky loving world! This shipping hell seems nice. Plan on staying for a while. Hoping to keep this updated pretty frequently. (no promises though) It won't be too many chapters, but please enjoy this little prologue to decide if it's something you'll wanna continue. :)
> 
> ***I'm not using Black Panther movie canon here. I may take tidbits, but the focus is on Steve and Bucky who happen to be in Wakanda.

He looks so peaceful like this. Features softened and relaxed as he sleeps. This is the thing he clings to with everyday that passes, and everytime he stands in front of the glass casing. From this spot, they can see out into the lands of Wakanda. They could have only imagined a place like this when they were young. Nothing this beautiful was seen when they toured, when they were just soldiers.

Never in his life would he think this would be where they are. Hiding away in a beautiful land because Steve abandoned the Avengers. No, this certainly isn’t how he thought life would be. Steve Rogers wasn’t the type to quit and turn his back on those he once served beside. Everyone knew this fact. Especially the man he spends everyday with. 

He swallows against the knot in his throat, looking away from the soft and peaceful features behind glass. Is this really spending his days with Bucky if he’s not even awake? Being able to see him and yet not be able to talk to him or hug him. So many years without Bucky. He still didn’t have his best friend even though he was looking right at him. 

“Is this living?” He whispers it to his sleeping friend. When he doesn’t answer, it hurts deep down in a place he forgot existed. A pit of despair that opened up all those years ago. He thought Bucky died, and when he was awake he tried to fill the pit everyday spent without him. It was slow and laborious, but he had been so close to being okay. 

And then Bucky came back. He realized he wasn’t filling a pit. He had just been adding forced happiness into a widening and all consuming sinkhole. So much time was spent backing away from it and trying to win an endless battle to fill it. That wasn’t what he was supposed to do. It took all this time for Steve to see that the sinkhole was supposed to swallow him. Crushing darkness was the only place for him to go.

“I don’t think I can trust my mind either…” He stares at Bucky with a burn in his eyes. He knows he won’t answer and that’s okay. 

Everything is just okay.

“Steve…”

The voice is so hesitant and it makes Steve feel bad. Everyone is walking on eggshells around him. He turns to face Sam, folding his arms across his chest. “Sam.”

“Come eat lunch with me?” Sam holds up two containers of what Steve can only assume is soup. 

The blonde looks back towards the case containing his friend before he answers. “Alright.”

He knows he shouldn’t be so solemn when walking past one of the few people standing beside him right now, but Steve is tired. It’s an excuse, he knows that, and he’s trying to stay away from those. So he smiles when he takes a seat at the laboratory's small kitchen table across from Sam.

It feels good to have someone smile back and respond when he is in front of them. Maybe he’s spending too much time in front Bucky. “Thank you.”

Sam nods while he stirs the soup he just opened, staring into it like it might reveal answers to questions he hasn’t asked. “Figured you forgot to eat.”

The soup burns as Steve forces himself to swallow it. He had forgotten to eat. He’s forgot a lot of things over the past eight months. Simple things like his appearance, food, and doing things for himself like reading and drawing. Sam was the one who made him get a haircut last week, and had even told the barber to trim up the beard Steve hadn’t realized was that long. 

He lets out a slow exhale, tightening his fingers into a fist in his lap. No one should be taking care of him, and no one should be outcasted like he is. Sam didn’t deserve any of this, didn’t deserve the way Steve has been zoned out and distant. 

“Sam…”

“Steve, we aren’t going through this again. I’m here because I want to be. Yeah, I can’t go back to the states right now, but I want to be here.”

He supposes that’s true. Clint hadn’t stuck around once Steve got him out of The Raft, but he did make sure contacting him would be easy. Sam didn’t want to go anywhere that wasn’t by Steve’s side. The fellow soldier made sure Steve knew that it wasn’t just Captain America he had followed so loyally. It was Steve. 

Guilt still ate at Steve, helping to expand the sinkhole inside of him. Captain America is dead. He died the moment his shield hit the ground in Siberia. Steve knew Cap was dead long before that, but he at least tried to keep him alive. 

Instead of going into the same spiel Sam has heard a few times, Steve just nods and continues eating. 

Living has become suffocating. The phone he keeps charged never rings, the friend he finally got back never wakes, and the feeling of duty has left him entirely. He’s not Captain America. He is a man with no country to serve. A soldier without a goal.

Lunch is quiet and uneventful. Steve’s mind is loud and messy though. The same as it has been for several months now. Cabin fever isn’t the name he’d put to this. He still goes outside and breathes in the warm air of Wakanda. Still travels to the villages and towns that T’Challa requests his company for. 

No. He’s not suffering from cabin fever. This is something deeper, darker, more painful. 

-

“It’s nice of you to join us, Steven.” 

Steve looks across the table where T’Challa is sat. For royalty, you wouldn’t know it aside from his clothes. Humble and kind despite the hurt he’s endured. He owes this man everything. Not many people would grant asylum to the man who murdered his father. 

“Thank you for inviting me every night.”

The king smiles briefly and removes his gaze from Steve. A wave of his hand says it all. Steve is welcome and accepted, he’s part of this land for the time being and everyone has treated him as family instead of a guest. A pang of guilt shoots through Steve’s stomach as he stares down at his food again.

Sam bumps him with his elbow, making him look up. His friend motions with his head to pay attention. 

“It looks like we are exiting this week with the same lack of news and peace as the week before that. The world is quiet right now. I wouldn’t say that’s good for the world, but it is certainly good for us.” T’Challa nods to his council who all smile and seem to relax. “Doesn’t mean there isn’t business and protection to keep up with.”

The blonde looks from the king to his friend and then to the people around the table. Lack of news from America and the Avengers isn’t necessarily a good thing and they all know it. He had no doubt that Tony has set out to keep tabs on him. 

Tony.

Steve excuses himself and sets his napkin in his seat. The air is suffocating and all the things he’s been continuously pushing down are trying to expel themself from his throat. Tony. Headstrong Tony. It took a lot of internal analyzing for him to write a letter for the man, and then a lot of work outs to calm himself enough to send it. 

The smell of pastries and fruit clear some of the anxiety in Steve as he walks through the kitchen. He just needed to continue through the tiled room and out onto the back balcony, from there he could step into the patio that was reserved for private meetings. 

Tony must hate him. Any sane man would hate Steve after what he did.He wanted these thoughts of Tony gone, or to be properly looked at for once. He wasn’t sure he was ready for that, seeing as how he put it off for eight months. Tony had taken him in, given him a place to call home and a chance at a family. 

The ‘playboy’ even opened his arms, heart, and bed to Steve. With two of his greatest loves dead, Steve couldn’t deny the need for affection. God, Tony had given him affection. The playboy act was such a lie. He was so soft and sweet and romantic to truly be a playboy. He didn’t laugh or judge Steve when they finally advanced past the soft kisses and timid hands. Inexperience at Steve’s age isn’t something most people would work with, but Tony had. 

And then it all went wrong. So many things happened at once. The main thing that changed it all was Bucky. 

It was always Bucky who made Steve reckless. He owned Steve’s heart and didn’t even know it. He would never know it. Especially now that he was in a state of sleep to keep everyone safe.

A sound Steve hasn’t heard in awhile catches his attention, pulling him from the spiraling thoughts and making him look towards its origin. A man was standing over another, his chest heaving and hand shaking. The man below him was on his back and staring up at his attacker. Steve could smell the blood before he saw it. The aggressor reared back and did it again. His fist meeting the other’s jaw, sending him back against the stone flooring.

Steve’s fingers clenched around the door handle to the balcony. An electric current surged through his body, making him react without any thought. The aggressor was 6’3”, soft dark skin, piercing brown eyes, stubbled jaw, close cut hair, wearing a white cotton shirt and tan cotton pants, feet bare, and smelled of aftershave. Steve was able to memorize all of this because he was now standing over him. The man was on the ground, out cold with blood on his lip.

With a sharp inhale, Steve pulled back and shook silently. He's pretty sure he just discovered the name for the deep, dark, and painful feeling he’s been suffering from. All it took was seeing an assault and his reaction to figure it out. Post Traumatic Stress. He misses the survival nature of war. The fight and feeling of taking down those who are wrong.

He starts hyperventilating as he runs down the hallway. His own rapid footsteps fading in and out of his hearing. His room is adjacent to this hallway and that’s the place he needs to go. Safe place. Only place. The door slams open with his fierce push to get into the safe place. He’s moving on instinct and there’s no stopping it. Steve has packed for this sort of thing before, a small duffel and a few clothes. 

Those didn’t matter though. What mattered was the suit the kind scientists of Wakanda had updated for him, just in case war came to him. If only they knew he would take himself to war, they wouldn’t have left it with his person. Steve shucks it on, and grabs the charged phone that connects him to the Avengers without real thought.

With one last sweep of the room he’s spent long restless nights in, he deems himself ready and slams the door shut behind him. He wants to go to Bucky. He wants Bucky to answer him. Neither of those are happening as he opens the balcony door for real this time. 

This is it. He’s really doing this and will not return until someone tells him Bucky is better. Only then… He jumps from the balcony and rolls to his feet, setting off into a full speed run into the forest beyond the edge of T’Challa’s home. 

Captain America is dead. Steve is a man with no home or country. There’s a name for people like himself. He quite likes the name, and thinks he will stick to it when asked who the hell he was. He’d answer them with, “Just a Nomad.”


End file.
